Deliver Us The Moon Preview

Space has always been one of the chronic tropes in videogames. Since its very conception, with games like Spacewar! and Space Invaders, consoles have had a catalogue of interstellar adventures in which a blinking pixel equated a shimmering star hundreds of light years away. There’s something that has undeniably pushed gamers closer and closer to extra-terrestrial confines, and it comes as no surprise that Deliver Us The Moon surfaces in 2016. With the commercialisation of VR and the 2015 craze behind us, this year promises to be a particularly flourishing year for game development. So get your overpriced VR headset, space-suit up and jump onto a rocket to the moon!

Deliver Us The Moon is set in the near future of 2069, when the Earth’s resources have been completely depleted, and you represent the last chance of salvation for the human race. The details of the plot have not been explained in detail as of yet, and what we know so far begs the question of why you, in particular, had to go on your damn own and couldn’t even take a teddy bear with you. I mean, hypothetically, if you had one. Thus, you start your journey in the deserts of Kazakhstan, from where your rocket is launched — for some reason.

Anyways, as you watch your astronaut literally prancing his way around the launch station, and making his way to the rocket, you can instantaneously observe the briskness of the environment and the facility’s design. Further on, gandering around the space station, all the influences in this game become evident. On the one side, the lifelessness and solitude of the setting evokes something of a Moon-like (the film, of course) and overwhelming atmosphere, almost lovecraftian, remarked by the insignificance of a lonely astronaut in the immensity of space. The station itself has plenty of objects knocked over, as if a certain xenomorph had been ambling about inadvertently. On the other, the ominous music and the infinity of space make it feel like 2001: A Space Odyssey; as you attempt to aid humanity outlive their own expiration day.

In the flesh of this nameless astronaut, you go up and down stairs in the facility, occasionally having to rush through particular sections as you gradually run out of oxygen. Gameplay slows down in these parts, and the sounds of the station get muzzled. Just like in Dead Space, when you step out of the spaceship to zero gravity and you solve puzzles, open doors and pull switches in a sort-of slow-mo manner, but with less flying around and more Gravity factor. Puzzles get slightly more complex after you get a futuristic gun that you shoot at doors to open them, or shoot at small notches in need of a bit of an electric current, like sockets.

Sadly, soon after you unlock a floaty robot as cute as Wheatley — when he was nice, at least —, the current build ends. As you step out to the ashen plains of the moon, being followed by your hovering robo-ball, the screen goes black. However, from this glance the game looks nothing but promising. Even though it strongly pushes the VR agenda, Dutch developers KeoKen Interactive have developed an atmospherically exhilarating game that will also be challenging enough without VR. Admittedly, like many games being announced recently, Deliver Us The Moon will not be as enjoyable without the VR headset, but can still offer a bit of challenge, and the environments still look incredibly beautiful. Particularly if you’re taking the leap and making a big investment in VR this year, look out for this one!